Leo Cotnoir

We've come a long ways from the early 2000s when the BAE Systems VP I worked for told me that there was no point in pursuing opportunities in UAV flight controls because they would never amount to anything.

That goes to the differing philosophies applied in fly-by-wire systems. Airbus airliners, and most military aircraft as far as I know, do not permit the crew to exceed the design limits of the airframe. Boeing, on the other hand, has traditionally given pilots the last word. I believe that the 737 MAX flight control system is more like Airbus's--perhaps someone could comment on that. The basic problem, however, is not the flight control system but sensor redundancy management. In the case of AF447, the flight control system compensated for an iced up sensor until it could no longer do so then turned control over to the crew who had no idea what was happening and, as it happens, responded inappropriately for which they can hardly be blamed. In the 737 MAX crashes, there seems to have been no provision in the MCAS portion of the flight control system to determine which of two sensors was giving an erroneous reading. A human pilot would have noticed that the AOA sensor output was not consi

Since 1981, Republicans have been seeking to emasculate the U.S. government by undermining regulatory agencies like the FAA. This latest debacle is just the latest example of why we need effective government oversight of industry on behalf of the public. The reputation of the FAA and other Federal agencies will not be restored until we elect a government that believes in the idea of governing. One could make a case that Boeing is a victim of Reaganist government that failed, on principle, to protect them from themselves.